The book offers a detailed analysis of the pluriverse of an Indigenous community in the south-eastern Himalayas. It is a rare deep-dive ethnography of the Mu´tunci community – more commonly called by their exonym Lepcha – and the ontologies and strategies activated in ritualised struggles to reduce marginality and ensure a good life. Based on over a decade of interactions, the author assembles community ritual practices and performances, their actors and power relations, as well as the histories and thought-frameworks they are embedded in. She shows how Mu´tunci actors live and activate various understandings of self and the world depending on their respec- tive spatio-temporal positioning. Through the ritual lens, the author analyses vulnerability and survivance and unravels multi-modal processes of constituting belonging the place, community, and the Himalayan environment, putting the polysemic concept of Lya´ngdo´k U´ngdo´k, protectors of land and water, at the core of her analysis. Moreover, the study develops a self-reflexive approach that aims to include Indigenous world-making within an analytical framework beyond dichotomic classifications.
